


why’d it have to be the slacker?

by gladdecease



Category: Naruto
Genre: Community: 100_situations, Gen, Geniuses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-11
Updated: 2007-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asuma has a suspicion about one of his students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	why’d it have to be the slacker?

Shikamaru blinks. “…and what’s _this_ supposed to be?”

“Just a puzzle. I want to see how fast you can put it together.”

Shikamaru looks it over. Wooden cubes, some of them glued together to make odd-looking shapes. “And I just… make it into a larger cube, right? Okay…”

He yawns, and gets started. Asuma starts timing him mentally. Really, this is only to satisfy the jounin’s curiosity. After reading a rulebook for shougi for ten minutes, Shikamaru completely overwhelmed the strategy Asuma had developed over years. He’s seen the kid play go too - he’s good. _Really_ good.

But his grades aren’t even close. In fact, they’re horrible - he was second only to Naruto for the worst grades in their graduating class. It doesn’t make sense that he’d do so badly if he’s smart enough to play go and shougi…

“Done.”

Asuma jerks - he wasn’t paying attention. “What?”

Shikamaru looks into his eyes coolly. “I said, I’m done.”

“Ah, really?” Sure enough, Shikamaru is holding out a cube made of cubes. “Nice job, Shikamaru. If you want to go home, we’re done for today.”

“…if I go home, my mom’ll shout at me for not training. Or she’ll tell me to help her out around the house. No thanks.” Shikamaru strolled off, probably to find a quiet patch of grass to lay in and watch clouds from.

“Suit yourself.” Now, to see what that time means. He checks his watch. It took Shikamaru about thirty seconds to finish, so…

Asuma scrambles around in his pocket for the guide for the test. “Thirty seconds, thirty seconds…” He scrolls down the crumpled list of times and approximate IQ levels. “Okay. A 100 point IQ is average, 130 is above average, and 150 and above is genius. Let’s see…”

His eyes widen. “ _No way_.” This is impossible. He’s never even _heard_ of someone with an IQ this high - he always suspected Kakashi was somewhere around this level, but Shikamaru’s no _Kakashi_. Shikamaru’s no genius.

 _…right?_

* * *

“Chouji! There you are!” Asuma has decided that the test is faulty. He already knows about how smart Chouji and Ino are - Ino may be near genius level, but both are easily above average. You have to be fairly smart to succeed as a ninja, unless you’ve got a load of dumb luck, like that Naruto kid.

“Eh? What do you want, Asuma-sensei?” Chouji is in the middle of a bag of chips, but other than that just seems to be walking around aimlessly.

“I was wondering if you’d do me a favor.”

“Sure, why not?”

Asuma hands him the puzzle. “Could you try to put those pieces together in a cube-shape?”

Chouji stares down the wood blocks. “Um… okay, sensei. But I’m really not good at these kinds of things; maybe you should let Shikamaru try it - ”

“I already asked him to, but I want you to try it too.”

“...well, alright.”

* * *

Asuma is dumbfounded. Chouji scored right where the IQ test predicted. An attempt with Ino proved the same thing - the test is as accurate as any could be. Which can only mean…

“Of all the genius I could have been given to teach, it had to be the _slacker_? Where’s the fairness in that?”

Life really likes messing with Asuma’s head sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Genius" at [100_situations](http://community.livejournal.com/100_situations). My table is [here](http://community.livejournal.com/glad_fics/18783.html).


End file.
